Pan Jianguo could not control her tears when she watched her son, gymnastics ace Li Xiaopeng, standing on the podium and holding the glittery gold medal at the men's team final Tuesday.

Li Xiaopeng

"Pengpeng, my dear son, congratulations to you," Pan said in the Hunan province dialect through telephone to Li while watching him on TV.

In fact, it has been over a year since she last him. Because of Li's tough training for the Olympics, they could only talk through the phone once a week.

Now in Beijing watching her son's triumph, Pan said: "It makes my heart ache to see his arm bleeding after finishing the parallel routine." She said she was so nervous that she was unable to sleep after getting up at 4am.

After grabbing his 15th international gold, the 27-year-old Li has surpassed "Prince of Gymnastics" Li Ning as the Chinese gymnast with the most medals. (Lan Tian)

The Redeem Men Team of Gymnastics

by Lei Lei

Chinese gymnasts (left to right) Chen Yibing, Huang Xu, Li Xiaopeng, Xiao Qin, Yang Wei and Zou Kai with their men's team gold medals in Beijing August 12 2008. Japan won silver and the United States, bronze. [China Daily]

It was a day of redemption for the Chinese men's gymnasts Tuesday.

Before an ecstatic home crowd, they regained the Olympic title, after finishing a disappointing fifth at the 2004 Athens Games.

In the eight-team final, the hosts earned 286.125 points, beating defending Olympic champion Japan to second place by a comfortable 7.25 points. The United States took the bronze with 275.850 points.

"It is glory for the whole Chinese gymnastics team," said world all-around champion Yang Wei, who had helped the team to win gold at the Sydney Games.

"The victory means all the efforts we put in are worthwhile."

Head coach Huang Yubin added: "The team gold medal is very important for us, since we won it at the 2000 Sydney Games but failed to defend it in Athens.

"The team gold requires top performances from all the six members at all the six events, which is very difficult to achieve. It is also the first team gold for China at these Games."

Except for a brief tie with Japan on the first apparatus, the floor exercise, the Chinese led throughout the competition, impressing with their high technical skills.

"Pommel Horse King" Xiao Qin finished his favorite event with a flawless routine of the highest score at 16.100 to open China's lead.

All the three Chinese gymnasts then put on solid routines on the rings, extending their advantage to over two points. World rings champion Chen Yibing earned the highest score of 16.575.

A highest score from Li Xiaopeng on the vault virtually secured China's gold medal as early as the fourth round. Huang Xu continued the team's domination on the parallel bars with 16.475 points, also the highest of all the participants on the apparatus.

"I almost burst into tears after the rings and parallel bars rounds," said Huang, 29.

Zou Kai sealed China's victory with a high-level routine on horizontal bar with a highest score of 15.975.

Defending Olympic champion Japan suffered from a string of blunders, and only secured their grip on the silver medal in the last rotation, coming from behind to overtake the Americans by 3.025 points. But the team was satisfied with the results.

"We did our best and we are satisfied with the result of a silver," said Hiroyuki Tomita of Japan, who is the 2005 all-around world champion.